Things to Look Forward to in 2022

HRH Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 70 years as reigning monarch this year and we are set to receive an extra bank holiday to mark the event.

The extra bank holiday means we can celebrate from Thursday June 2 to Sunday June 5, 2022 - that extra day off work is worth celebrating on its own.

Start organising your street party now and look forward to concerts and light displays to commemorate the occasion.

The Winter Olympics are due to take place from February 4th to 20th this year. Although controversy surrounds the host nation and diplomatic boycotts dominate the news headlines, let's not forget the world's finest athletes have been training for this event for four years and deserve our support and appreciation.

The Summer Olympics proved popular in 2021 and it is expected that Winter viewers will relish watching old favourites like the bobsleigh and skeleton, new favourites like curling as well as the more extreme ski jumping and snowboarding events.

Ones to watch for Team GB are Charlotte Bankes in the snowboarding and teenager Kirsty Muir in the freestyle skiing. There is a new mixed doubles event in curling too, with Team GB represented by Scottish champions Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat.
There is definitely something for everyone to watch this February.

The longest day, or Summer Solstice, takes place on Tuesday 21st June 2022. Until then, we have months of our days getting longer to look forward to.

To cheer yourself up, why not start making a note of the time it gets dark to prove to yourself that Spring is on the way. We are part way through January, February is only a short month, before you know it daffodils will be peeking up from the soil in no time at all.

Another event with a controversial host this year is the World Cup. Not known for their football prowess, Qatar was as controversial a choice for its climate than it's human rights record. Due to the desert temperatures the World Cup will be held outside of Summer for the first time, November 21 to December 18 2022. Qatar is three hours ahead of the UK too, so we may see pubs opening at 8am this Winter.

England are tipped as one of the favourites this year after their success in the Euros last Summer, but with serial winners Brazil in the mix the road to victory is going to be tough. France are reigning world champions so are hotly tipped to retain the World Cup in Qatar.

World Cup football fans don't have to wait until November for their fix though, with the European entry play-offs taking place in March. Scotland and Wales successfully made it into the play-offs and it is likely they will play one another for one of the remaining three European entry places for the World Cup. To make it even more exciting, European Champions Italy will likely face Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal in the play-offs too, after both failed to qualify via the group stages.

An exciting year ahead for football fans!

2021 saw many people able to attend festivals again, particularly those that happened towards the back end of summer.

Unfortunately the biggest festival in the calendar, Glastonbury, happened too early in 2021 to benefit from the removal of covid restrictions and so had to be cancelled.

Glastonbury 2022 is due to take place between June 22nd and 26th. If you're lucky enough to have had a ticket (they sold out back in 2019 for the planned 2020 event) then you can look forward to seeing Diana Ross and Billie Eilish - with many more acts to be confirmed.

Hopefully all festivals will go ahead as planned this year so festival fans can look forward to something for everyone including:


* Reading & Leeds in August featuring Arctic Monkeys,
* TRNSMT in Glasgow in July with Foals and The Strokes
* Download at Donington Park in June with Kiss and Iron Maiden topping the bill
* Tramlines in Sheffield in July with Madness and Kasabian
* Latitude in Suffolk in July - no announcement on line up yet but if previous years are anything to go by it's bound to be a belter.

James Bond: No Time to Die and the latest instalment from Spider Man saved the cinema in 2021 and there are some big releases lined up for 2022 to carry that momentum forward. One of the most anticipated releases has to be the newest in the Batman films as Twilight's Robert Pattinson takes on the iconic man in black.

Other films to watch out for are the Top Gun follow up film Top Gun: Maverick - how will they recreate the nostalgia, joy and tears (poor Goose) of the first film?

Keanu Reeves' John Wick gets his chapter 4 in 2022 with fans hoping his latest unnamed dog sees out the end of the film after still not quite getting over the loss of Daisy in the first instalment.

Harry Potter fans can look forward to Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore this year, with Johnny Depp's role going to Mads Mikkelsen it will be interesting to hear the fans reaction.

Look out for another remake of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile this year too. Personally a remake could never hold a torch to Peter Ustinov's Hercule Poirot in the 1978 film featuring Hollywood legends Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Mia Farrow, David Niven and Dame Maggie Smith but Kenneth Branagh didn't do a bad job on his remake of Murder on the Orient Express so we shall wait and see!